Guitar Planet considers the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time; but only the ones you might not know about. This month we take a look at Mike Bloomfield.

The great thing about music is that there’s something in it for everyone. You don’t have to love it all, of course, as some people prefer strings to beats, or bass lines to melodies. But you can take just about any genre, even those that might seem like polar opposites, and find that they all have one thing in common: their roots.

With very few exceptions, almost every modern genre can be traced back to the blues. From rock and roll to hip hop, from country to R&B; none of it would be the same were it not for the great blues artists of the 20th century. And with a recent revival in popularity thanks to contemporaries like John Mayer, Gregg Allman, and Joe Bonamassa, things have started to look up again for the seemingly faded genre.

But blues still occasionally gets a bad rap. It picks up the same critiques that we’ve heard over and over, often stereotyped by guitar critics for being overly repetitive and lacking in variety.

We disagree. And there’s no better way to disagree than to take a look at one of the greatest blues guitarists of all time. A guitarist who made remarkable steps for the entire genre, but somehow went under the radar of recognition in today’s crowds.

Last month we said that the aim of this column would be to connect you with the best guitarists that you might not know about, and this month we do so by honoring Mike Bloomfield.

Who?

At a time when amps were getting louder, rock and roll music was really taking off, and lead singers got all the girls; Mike Bloomfield was one of the few musicians known purely for his talent with a guitar.

Born in Chicago in the early 1940s, Bloomfield crept into the blues scene as a teenager. He received his first guitar at age 13 and no more than a year later he was sneaking into Chicago’s famous Southside blues clubs to see his idols; players like Muddy Waters and Otis Spann. None too shy, he would invite himself on stage, plug in, and start playing along before anyone could tell him otherwise.

Normally, a white boy playing blues in Chicago’s Southside for a nearly all black crowd of men (more than twice his age) would be laughed out of a bar, but Bloomfield’s talent earned him respect. He instantly caught the eye of those around him, according to blues veteran and collaborator Al Kooper, who wrote, “They knew this was not just another white boy; this was someone who truly understood what the blues were all about.”

That understanding, according to Bloomfield, was natural for any Jewish person; “Black people suffer externally in this country. Jewish people suffer internally. The suffering's the mutual fulcrum for the blues.”

His ability to both understand the blues and express it so profoundly earned Bloomfield an impressive list of early supporters, including B.B. King, Bob Dylan, and Buddy Guy.

Mike Bloomfield (Photo courtesy of Dave Glass)

Blooming in Butterfields

It was in the Southside, while running his own small club, that Bloomfield met Paul Butterfield and Elvin Bishop. In 1965, after working as a session guitarist under a Columbia Records contract, Bloomfield joined the original Paul Butterfield Blues Band, where he would change the face – and color – of blues forever.

The fast-paced and electric group ushered in a new wave of blues, a “white man’s blues” driven by Bloomfield’s intricate guitar solos and the band’s influences in jazz and psychedelic rock.

In 1965, after recording an initial album with the Butterfield Blues Band, Bloomfield took a sabbatical to join Bob Dylan in studio and at the Newport Folk Music Festival. It was there that Dylan stunned crowds for the first time by blasting them with electric rock and roll. This turning point in Dylan’s career was heavily influenced by Bloomfield, who was offered a position in Dylan’s touring band but turned it down and rejoined Butterfield’s crew.

The group’s second release, , was by far their most popular. The record features Bloomfield’s most innovative and astounding work as a guitarist. Mainly consisting of traditional and contemporary covers, West’s title track, written by Bloomfield himself, revealed his influence from jazz legends like John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Like many other great songs of the era, the piece was allegedly inspired by an overnight LSD trip.

Puritanical

Bloomfield’s jaw-dropping guitar work on stood out over the noise of the music scene for one simple reason: it was pure.

While other guitarists like Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck were exploring the use of effects and technology, Bloomfield kept his tone all natural. Armed with his Fender Telecaster, the only tampering done on his channels was loud volume and some healthy reverb. He added expression to his purist style by using vibrato during solos, a technique that has influenced dozens of famous guitarists such Joe Bonamassa, Slash, and Eric Johnson.

Bloomfield’s work with vibrato coincided with his remarkable economy of notes and natural sustain through the guitar. His guitar work on has been attributed by music critics as a precursor to music’s rock revolution, when extended breaks were written into songs with the express intention for improvisation.

Be sure to check out…

In 1967, Bloomfield left the Butterfield Blues Band to form his own group, Electric Flag, where he would record a number of albums in addition to continued solo work. But we believe that his work with Butterfield was both his best and most influential.